As we visit East Ocean Seafood/Alameda on a regular basis (weekdays ONLY; being retired we don’t hassle with weekends) I thought I’d update folks. We feel some of the dim sum has improved quite a bit, although there are still weak points - which is true of all of the competition, to be sure.
Excellent:
Har gow
Siu mai
Combination meat dumplings (steamed)
Gai lan with oyster sauce
Very good:
Wu kok, mashed taro with ground pork filling
Hom Sui Gok (note: the menu lists them as "Fried Meat Filled Dumplings”),
Har cheong fun, rice noodle roll with shrimp
Cheong fun XO, rice noodle rolls with XO sauce
Ngau Yiuk Yuen, beef meatballs
Good:
Lo Bak Ko, pan-fried turnip cake (this was notable; I usually rate this as only “Fair”, but this time there was less rice flour used, so it wasn’t quite so heavy)
Dan tat, custard tarts
Gai Bao, chicken bao
Skip:
XLB (true of any Cantonese dim sum place except Koi and Yank Sing, in our experience)
While we were waiting for a take-out order, they gave us some Hot and Sour Soup. Long ago we tried EO’s hot and sour soup, as Spouse is very fond of it. That was at least a couple of decades back, and we don’t recall being impressed with it. The old Restaurant Chu on College Avenue used to have a very good if unusual version, adding in some edamame beans. Richmond’s Sichuan Fusion’s version has varied over the years, depending on who was in the kitchen.
Although EO’s new version of this soup isn’t quite at the top level, it is much closer than the “old” EO came. This was lively with a well-judged hit of vinegar, and chile-hot at just the right level. It had a nice level of vegetables and mushrooms, although light on the dried lily buds and missing the dow fu, aka tofu. It would make a good starter soup and we enjoyed it very much.
Chow Fun. We prefer the “with gravy” style. We loathe beansprouts so avoid dry-fried noodle dishes. East Ocean’s Beef with Scrambled Egg and the Shrimp with Scrambled Egg are both excellent. Do keep in mind EOS is one of the very few Chinese restaurants now that tends to be low-salt. The shrimp especially is a very subtle dish so you may want to add a bit of salt or soya to it, altho we like it the way it is.
Right now when you order bok choy they are using the smaller sizes - not quite baby bok choy, but close. I dislike the big watery bok choy, but the smaller bok choy are excellent. Sichuan Fusion/Richmond does an outstanding baby bok choy throughout the winter months.
Also, per their website it looks like their sushi DR/take-out is now open in their smaller, former secondary DR off to the left of the main entrance. We haven’t tried it yet.
We visited Mayflower/Dublin recently and I’ll report on that later.
makes me sad
